Invertebrate and Microorganism Projects

Aquatic macroinvertebrates, such as insect larvae, snails, and worms, play a vital role in stream ecosystems, both as a food source and as consumers of algae and other organic matter. Because macroinvertebrates are sensitive to environmental change, monitoring them can help to detect chemical, physical, and biological impacts to aquatic ecosystems.

Beneath your feet as you walk across the gypsum dunes and soils of White Sands National Monument is an ecosystem of roots and millions and millions of microorganisms that live in the pore spaces between sand grains.

The purpose of this research is to survey the arthropods of White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, USA, and Cuatrociénegas Protected Area, Coahuila, Mexico, specifically to discover new, unnamed and potentially endemic species.

An inventory of moths at White Sands National Monument has revealed a previously unknown concentration of endemic species.

Vegetation and soils are two of many natural resources monitored by the National Park Service (NPS) Division of Inventory & Monitoring (I&M). Learning about vegetation dynamics helps us to better understand the integrity of ecological processes, productivity trends, and ecosystem interactions that can otherwise be difficult to monitor. In NPS units of the American Southwest, three I&M networks monitor vegetation and soils using the scientific protocol described here.

Lake Lucero is a highly saline and seasonally aquatic playa; it is the source of the White Sands National Monument’s gypsum dunes of the Tularosa Basin in Southern New Mexico. Its combination of an acidic hot groundwater and alkaline, highly saline soil profile raises interesting questions on the genetic diversity of the soil microorganisms and their associated metabolic functions, especially related to their distribution with soil depth.